The Humboldt Wagon Road
The Humboldt Wagon Road

Author: Marti Leicester

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780738576435

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This book offers readers an opportunity to ride the historic Humboldt Wagon Road from Chico to Susanville through images that have been collected since the 1860s. Many never-before-published photographs and oral histories tell a story of people who established what has been called this "small corner of the West." In the 1850s, John Bidwell, a California pioneer, agriculturist, businessman, and politician, envisioned a freight and passenger route that would connect San Francisco, the Sacramento River, and his newly established community of Chico. He wanted it to cross the mountains to the gold and silver mines in Idaho and Nevada. Bidwell financed, constructed, and opened the road for horses, wagons, stagecoaches, and eventually trucks and automobiles. From the Civil War era until the present, the road has carried everything from lumber to tourists.

Humboldt Wagon Road
Humboldt Wagon Road

Author: Marti Leicester

Publisher: Arcadia Library Editions

Published: 2012-02

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 9781531650582

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This book offers readers an opportunity to ride the historic Humboldt Wagon Road from Chico to Susanville through images that have been collected since the 1860s. Many never-before-published photographs and oral histories tell a story of people who established what has been called this "small corner of the West." In the 1850s, John Bidwell, a California pioneer, agriculturist, businessman, and politician, envisioned a freight and passenger route that would connect San Francisco, the Sacramento River, and his newly established community of Chico. He wanted it to cross the mountains to the gold and silver mines in Idaho and Nevada. Bidwell financed, constructed, and opened the road for horses, wagons, stagecoaches, and eventually trucks and automobiles. From the Civil War era until the present, the road has carried everything from lumber to tourists.

Humboldt
Humboldt

Author: Emily Brady

Publisher: Scribe Publications

Published: 2013-07-29

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1922072613

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In the vein of Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief and Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox, journalist Emily Brady journeys into a secretive subculture — built on marijuana. Outside the United States, the words ‘Humboldt County’ mean little. Inside the United States — the home of the war on drugs — those words might prompt a knowing grin. For many people, the name is infamous, and yet the place and its inhabitants have been nearly impenetrable. Until now. Humboldt is a narrative exploration of this insular community in northern California, which for nearly 40 years has existed primarily on the cultivation and sale of marijuana. It’s a place where business is done with thick wads of cash, and savings are buried in the backyard. In Humboldt County, marijuana supports everything from fire departments to schools. As legalisation looms, the community stands at a crossroads, and its inhabitants are deeply divided — some want to claim their rightful heritage as master growers and have their livelihood legitimised, while others want to continue reaping the inflated profits of the black market. Emily Brady spent a year living with the highly secretive residents of Humboldt County, and her cast of eccentric, intimately drawn characters take us into a fascinating alternate universe. It’s the story of a small town that became dependent on a forbidden plant, and of how everything is changing as marijuana goes mainstream.

Hard Road West
Hard Road West

Author: Keith Heyer Meldahl

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-01-11

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0226923290

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The dramatic journeys of the 19th century Gold Rush come to life in this geologist’s tour of the American West and the events that shaped the land. In 1848, news of the discovery of gold in California triggered an enormous wave of emigration toward the Pacific. The dramatic terrain these settlers crossed is so familiar to us now that it is hard to imagine how frightening—even godforsaken—its sheer rock faces and barren deserts once seemed to them. Hard Road West brings their perspective vividly to life, weaving together the epic overland journey of the covered wagon trains and the compelling story of the landscape they encountered. Taking readers along the 2,000-mile California Trail, Keith Meldahl uses settler’s diaries and letters—as well as his own experiences on the trail—to reveal how the geology and geography of the West shaped our nation’s westward expansion. He guides us through a landscape of sawtooth mountains, following the meager streams that served as lifelines through an arid land, all the way to California itself, where colliding tectonic plates created breathtaking scenery and planted the gold that lured travelers west in the first place. “Alternates seamlessly between vivid accounts of the 19th-century journey and lucid explanations of the geological events that shaped the landscape traveled.”—Library Journal

Sierra Crossing
Sierra Crossing

Author: Thomas Frederick Howard

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1998-06-30

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9780520926219

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A critical era in California's history and development—the building of the first roads over the Sierra Nevada—is thoroughly and colorfully documented in Thomas Howard's fascinating book. During California's first two decades of statehood (1850-1870), the state was separated from the east coast by a sea journey of at least six weeks. Although Californians expected to be connected with the other states by railroad soon after the 1849 Gold Rush, almost twenty years elapsed before this occurred. Meanwhile, various overland road ventures were launched by "emigrants," former gold miners, state government officials, the War Department, the Interior Department, local politicians, town businessmen, stagecoach operators, and other entrepreneurs whose alliances with one another were constantly shifting. The broad landscape of international affairs is also a part of Howard's story. Constructing roads and accumulating geographic information in the Sierra Nevada reflected Washington's interest in securing the vast western territories formerly held by others. In a remarkably short time the Sierra was transformed by vigorous exploration, road-promotion, and road-building. Ox-drawn wagons gave way to stagecoaches able to provide service as fine as any in the country. Howard effectively uses diaries, letters, newspaper stories, and official reports to recreate the human struggle and excitement involved in building the first trans-Sierra roads. Some of those roads have become modern highways used by thousands every day, while others are now only dim traces in the lonely backcountry.

Chico
Chico

Author: Debra Moon

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 9780738524467

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In what has emerged as one of the most desirable places to live at the turn of this new century, the journey of Chico since its inception is one of growth as well as remembrance. A rich cultural heritage is as responsible for development of this diverse community as its fertile soils were in creating an economic stronghold. From the traditions and teachings of the Mechoopda Indians to its present day reputation as an educational bastion, Chico serves as a backbone of the budding Central Valley.

Rediscovering the Golden State
Rediscovering the Golden State

Author: William A. Selby

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-09-19

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 1119493145

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Now in its fourth edition, Rediscovering the Golden State: California Geography examines this unique state’s incredibly diverse landscapes, and how geography and geographic change influences everything from the state’s natural systems and cycles, to its agriculture and more advanced industries, to human migration, cultures, and urban planning. Exploring California through a geographic lens reveals how the field has evolved to cross traditional boundaries, connect local and global issues, and provide the insights that lead to practical solutions to problems new and old. Challenging the reader to look beyond stereotypes and assumptions, this book encourages active participation in planning the state’s dynamic future. And this project makes teaching and learning about the geography of California more convenient, exciting, and rewarding for instructors and students. Going beyond a scientific analysis of natural features and environmental processes, this book illustrates how social, political, and economic divides can be bridged through the study of geography and the connections it brings to light. From geology, weather and climate, biogeography, and hydrology, we cover the state’s physical geography. And from demography and migration, to cultures and economies, to rural and urban geography, we monitor the state’s human geography pulse and then make the vital connections. California continues to lead the nation in population, economics (5th largest in the world), agriculture, natural and cultural diversity, and a host of other categories. This powerful state has earned this powerful publication. This timely and versatile book will prove useful to Californians in business, education, government, and to concerned citizens and curious readers seeking to learn more about the Golden State.